The Student as the Global Communicator/Collaborator

 

Engaging students in authentic audiences around the world provides many opportunities for those students. It allows them to collaborate with other students from around the world and learn from many different perspectives. Putting yourself into someone else shoes is a difficult task and an exceptional skill to have, especially in the world we live in today. Students are able to learn new skills, ideas, cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives in the world outside the walls of a classroom. Being able to collaborate with other students globally is a great opportunity and challenge for students. I think when a person is curious about something they are more willing to learn more about it, so being able to collaborate with someone who is completely different from yourself encourages curiosity and motivates students to participate, rather than teacher-assigned work that the student expects every day. When interacting with others globally, you never know what to expect to learn, so I feel that’s what makes it so exciting. I can see there being language barriers among the students, but I think guiding students to use technology to translate would be an effective strategy to get past the language barrier. When working with others globally there is also a time difference. Students may not be able to interact using video calls or live chats often because of the time difference, however, if teachers could effectively communicate/collaborate with other teachers globally, they may be able to develop a strategy to allow the students to communicate more in this way. For example, if students were unable to video call or have a live chat, the teachers could record the students (ask the students questions, talk about themselves, where they live, etc.) and send it to the other student to view and respond with another video. Another barrier would be the lack of participation from other students globally. If a teacher planned to collaborate with a different class globally, but the other class was not as engaged in interacting, it could affect the engagement of this type of assignment for your own students